1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for distinguishing between a human being and an animal to be utilized for a monitoring surveillance network, anti-crime monitoring equipment, and military monitoring equipment, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for distinguishing between a human being and an animal capable of properly identifying whether or not a target is a human being or an animal by using selective stimuli.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a monitoring surveillance network, anti-crime monitoring equipment, and military monitoring equipment are systems for detecting an human being intruder and generating an alarming event. Thus, when a target is detected within a certain monitoring area, a method for identifying target as a human being is required.
Conventionally, a method for identifying target as a human being from other possible targets (e.g., an animal) using an image processing scheme has been proposed.
With this, an image of a target is captured, then the absolute size of the target is recognized by using the area and distance of the target. Finally, an identification step is followed based on the absolute size of the target. However, because this detection method merely uses the absolute size of the target, it has relatively low detection accuracy. In other words, there may be animals having a similar size to a human being in which the absolute size based identification method leads to an inaccuracy. Furthermore, the obtained image quality can be severely degraded depending on the weather conditions, especially at night. In an extreme case, a target may intentionally hide from an image capturing device. In these cases, an identification accuracy for a conventional method severely decreases.